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Yichen found the gathering in the main receiving room where the filthy, bloody mess of them were standing around a low table. Across the top lay an intricately woven cloth filled with interesting and dazzling intersecting colors. It was long and narrow, almost like a wide scarf, but no hands other than Junjie’s had ever touched this piece of fabric.
He’d watched his martial brother work on this length of cloth over the years, his eyes glazing over as if he were in a trance. He never spoke about what he saw when he moved the needle in and out of the fabric, but whenever he finished—red rimmed, those eyes.
Junjie admitted that he’d received his first vision while he’d been mending one of his own robes centuries ago. Something about the thread held between his fingers and that sharp needle helped to clarify that magic in his mind. It was at Ming Yu’s suggestion that he start a single long cloth for the clan so he could follow all their lives and give focus to his gift. Not until he saw the first deaths years ahead of them happening did they realize the dark curse he’d been given.
Right now, Jun-Jun sat on the floor in front of the cloth, his hands balled into fists so tight his hands were shaking as he pressed them to his chest. The smudges of dirt on his cheeks were further streaked by the tracks of tears slipping from his eyes.
“Sh-shixiong,” Jun-Jun stammered.
Xiao Dan kneeled next to him and wrapped an arm around his tense and trembling shoulders, pulling him into a tight, half embrace. “I know you’re scared, Jun-Jun, but you must find courage for Li Xiang. He would want you to be strong. We’re all together supporting you.”
“Xiang isn’t dead,” Moon snapped, even as he clung to Chen. His voice came out muffled by how he buried his face in Chen’s chest. “He’s fucking not.”
“Please, Jun-Jun,” Meimei pleaded. “If he is alive, you might see something that could help us save him.”
Mrrrow…
Yichen’s head snapped up and eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed opened to see a large orange-and-white tabby cat rubbing its body on Junjie as if he were a human scratching post.
“Yiguo?”
The cat answered with another loud and persistent meow. It tipped its head up to rub one cheek and then the top of its head on Junjie’s arm.
“How did you get in here?” Junjie asked. The vampire’s voice had almost completely lost its panicked tone as he unclenched his fingers and scooped up the cat. He cuddled it against his chest, rubbing his cheek on the cat’s head while the feline’s purrs filled the silence of the room.
Yichen twisted to look at the front door, but it was closed.
“I have no idea how that cat keeps getting inside,” Chen muttered.
“Knowing our luck, the cat is magical and knows how to pick locks,” Meimei added.
“Well—” Rei began to comment, but Junjie cut him off.
“Yiguo isn’t magical. He’s a normal cat who likes soft places to sleep. There’s nothing strange about that.”
Yichen glanced up at Rei, but the elf snapped his mouth shut and shook his head, offering Yichen a tight-lipped smile. Whatever. He had more important things to worry about than a house cat.
“Jun-Jun,” Xiao Dan murmured after a couple of minutes. The time holding Yiguo and stroking his soft orange fur had worked wonders in calming Junjie. His breathing had evened out, and the trembling had left his fingers.
“I’m okay now. I can do this.” After pressing a kiss to the top of Yiguo’s head, he moved the cat out of his lap, placing it on the floor.
His fingers started shaking as he reached for the cloth, but Junjie didn’t allow it to stop him. Curling his fingers, he put both hands on the cloth several centimeters before the end, the tips moving over the colors as if he were a blind man reading braille.
“After Chen returned from the forest with vampire Moon and swore that Yichen was safe, I worked on the cloth for a bit, getting it caught up to present day,” Junjie explained. “I wasn’t brave enough to work further. I—” His words cut off and all but the middle finger on his left hand lifted from the fabric. That finger pressed hard on a bright-blue thread. “He…he…” Junjie stammered, his eyes squeezed shut. Even a meow from the persistent Yiguo couldn’t shake the vampire’s concentration.
Yichen took a step forward, wanting to grab Jun-Jun by the shoulders and shake him until he spit out what he saw.
“He’s alive!” Junjie shouted. “Xiang is still alive!”
Gasps of relief and small whimpers broke the silence. Yichen threw himself into Rei’s arms, crushing the elf to him. A dragon might have taken Xiang, but that stubborn bastard was still alive.
“Can you see anything? Feel anything? Is he hurt? Can you get a feel for where he is? Did the dragon take him to the fae realm?” Chen spat out the questions as quickly as he could speak while clinging to Moon.
Junjie almost immediately shook his head. “I can’t see anything. Darkness. He feels…far away. Not across-the-ocean far. Not in the fae realm. Just…not close. He…” Junjie broke off into a giggle. “He doesn’t feel hurt. Pissed. Furious.”
Xiao Dan threw his head back and laughed as he squeezed Junjie in a half hug. “That’s our Xiang. If anyone stands a chance against a dragon, it’s our Xiang.”
“How do we find it?” Rei demanded. The words were barely out of his mouth before his shoulders slumped and his eyes widened. “Fuck…how do we take on a dragon?”
